During last night's Cleveland Cavaliers victory over the Knicks, the crowd at Madison Square Garden gave a "swelling ovation" for Cavaliers star LeBron James, the subject of rumors about a 2010 trade to New York. James said of the ovation, "It's humbling to have fans ... in the mecca of basketball."
However, he neutralized talk of bigger promotional deals if he came to NYC, saying, "A guy like Tim Duncan, for instance, has signed short-term deals and decided to take pay cuts so that San Antonio could sign guys like Manu [Ginobili] and Tony Parker. San Antonio, we know, is not that big a market. So for me it's all about winning." He added, "I think July 1, 2010, is a very big day. It's probably going to be one of the biggest days in free agent history in the NBA. So a lot of teams are gearing up to try to prepare themselves to be able to put themselves in position to get one of the big free agent market guys."
New York's Will Leitch points out the other drawbacks to James joining the Knicks ("The Cavaliers can not only offer LeBron more money in two years than the Knicks can — they can offer him a better team") and the Daily News' Frank Isola runs down the teams that could land him, including the the Knicks and Nets.
